Hackaday’s official Kickstarter policy

We’re getting inundated with campaigns on crowdfunding sites like kickstarter and indiegogo. Sometimes they’re really cool projects, sometimes they’re not. Unfortunately, they are all basically appeals for coverage on hackaday so they can get money. That immediately puts a negative taste in our mouths. Then again, if a hacker legitimately makes something really awesome, why wouldn’t we want to help spread the word?

We don’t want to stop a really cool project from being shared with you just because it is on kickstarter, but we also don’t want to serve as a crowdfunding advertising platform. It ends up being complicated, especially if the idea is really cool, but the details are sparse.

So, what do you think? Share your thoughts on how hackaday should handle crowdfunding in projects.

p.s. This started as a rant about how sick of the constant pleas for kickstarter coverage we’re getting. We’re trying to stay positive and constructive here, please do the same in the comments.

Yes, but they are a finished product with actual performance statistics and probably an existing user base. Here we’re basically getting bugged by our ne’er do well slacker uncle with his latest get rich quick scheme….

I think if the project on kickstarter has something that would ‘ADD’ to the comunity/readership of Hackaday. Then definately.

Alot of the people with projects on there are guy’s/gals who have been inspired by hackaday to move to try and create something not just for themselves but for a comunity.

If it’s an out an out sales pitched aimed at getting views then no. Things like the recent FORM 1:3D printer (which really was more of a manufacturer just getting pre-order sales) stuff like that the technology behind it is worth a mention but not the kickstarter.

One of the things I love most about this site is the creativity of the community that inspires innovation and free thinking. As a bi-product you get people who are also entrepreneurs. It seems that supporting the entrepreneurs is also supporting the community through inspiration. I would suggest the creation of a new category in which community members interested in supporting their fellow enthusiast and entrepreneur can go and view what’s new and possibly upcoming. The projects that seem to really stand out to the editors could still be featured on the main page.

If it’s an interesting project that falls inside hackaday’s general mandate, then it should be covered, whether it’s on someone’s blog or whether it’s begging for money on some crowdfunding site. Everything you post is “free advertising” in one way or another. I wouldn’t stress this issue one way or the other personally…

dubyaohohdee +1. I feel exactly the way you do. The focus should be strictly on the project. Leave out any mention of a kickstarter project in the article itself and limit links to build pages and blogs. If the linked pages also happen to support a kickstarter campaign then no big deal. The meat and potatoes of the content should really be the project itself.

I view most kickstarter projects with a jaundiced eye any how. I suspect the majority have ambitions greater than their ability to manage a large project and ultimately end in disappointment.

I totally agree, I really think that a hack, or a hardware project whether it is to be funded or not has its place on hackaday.

AFAICT, hackers like to spend the most of their time actually hacking, and not doing publicity about their hacks. Most of the interesting hacks I find is when crawling the web RTFMing a specific topic about hacks I’m trying to do.

And, sure, sometimes some people want to do some money with their hacks, and that’s good for them. I don’t see the difference with all the Arduino, RaspPi stories or even Apple stuff that are now mainstream but begun as true hacks.

Whether there is or not business around is not the matter, what matters most is what the hack is, how much is published about it, and how enlightning can the hack be.

Some time ago, the RaspPi has had a lot of publicity over here, whereas it’s not a full OSHW, while today, a concurrent with different feature and at least as much open as the raspi, the Cubieboard, does not get even one article. Yeah, it’s being funded on indiegogo, but who cares, they also have a website and a blog.

Just another ‘agree’ in the sea of opinions here. I think it’s unfair to preclude a project simply because someone is attempting to commercialize or sell the project.

Remember the point of our community–we like making things. If it’s cool and innovative, then post it. For a project to be worthy of being posted to a maker website, there probably needs to be documentation to show what’s already been done and a lot of the technical aspects of the design project. I’d imagine most of the Kickstarter projects that bother you aren’t particularly interesting and don’t have these aspects in the first place.

So linking directly to a blog or project website makes perfect sense, as a kickstarter page is very unlikely to have the level of detail most hackers are interested in, anyway.

A Kickstarter project demonstrates a love for hacking/electronics to the extent of trying to find a way to fund doing it all the time. If the project is “hack-worthy” of Hackaday, let it rip. If compelling enough, it’ll find funding.

Agreed! Link to the blog or website instead of kickstarter. The majority of the interesting projects usually have a website/blog that goes more in-depth. Kickstarter pages will always be from a selling point of view.

I have thought about asking software-producing kickstarter projects to sign a GPL pledge – if your project is crowd-funded, you have to sign completion goals and check your source code into a central repository, so that in the event you bail on it, all of your code goes into the GPL codebase. Or something like if 51% of your backers decided to go GPL, you must provide source code that provably does your project. This can be translated to physical projects as 3d printer images and circuit board images.

I would agree that in most cases it’s only inside hackaday’s mandate if some sort of prototype exists. Although I don’t see why it matters if the project is funded or not. But hackaday certainly shouldn’t be promoting vaporware.

As long as it already *exists* and is *awesome* funding status on Kickstarter doesn’t matter — Hack a Day is a great place for it. If it doesn’t exist then it’s vaporware and doesn’t belong. If it does exist but isn’t hack-awesome, then it also doesn’t belong.

Please demand a functioning and documented build. I don’t want to see another scammer (intentional or not) getting funded on a project they have no clue of how to build.
This man got funded i think on indiegogo, but can’t tell the difference between solder flux and solder paste

2 Cents ->
The campaign should have a external web page with the hack/project on it. It must not be just a product but a legitimate hack or cool thing that the person or group worked on before being posted on the crowdfunding site.

I like to read about how someone did something… the reasons why… the failures (and successes) so I can try it myself or get some useful information off of it.

I agree with this comment
if the nature of the project is within HAD scope and it is shown somewhere as a hack or project I don’t mind if it’s begging for money. However if it’s only an idea of someone asking for funds I would not want to see it

I say continue on the way you have been. If you like a project and think it’s something you’d share if it weren’t on Kickstarter, then share it. I like seeing cool stuff that isn’t just a fly-by-night project. If someone in the community has a cool project and they’re trying to turn it into a product (which then I can use for my projects), then why the heck not?

You’re not a news outlet. You don’t have to give everyone a fair shake. Post cool stuff that’s cool. Ignore the rest.

IMO, your kickstarter policy should be to not have one. Feature something if you like it, ignore it if you don’t.

I agree, they have to detail how and why they did what they did so others can duplicate it. Sure they can sell the finished products to those who want to buy it, but they must offer a write up for those who want to duplicate or amend it.

I think what you’ve been doing so far is pretty good. As long as the thing is cool enough anyway, I’m not sure it matters whether or not it is a kickstarter. Maybe only post it if it contains enough details of how it works or is interesting in some way?

A “hackaday links” style of having a post every so often with some recent kickstarter things could work.

I’ll cordially place a vote against a “kickstarter links” feature/topic.

Looking at the current situation in terms of game theory, people with kickstarter projects have a dominant strategy for dealing with Hackaday: Begging and getting a mention gives positive rewards, begging and getting ignored leaves you no worse than you were before. A rational player seeing those rules will choose in favor of begging every time.

Creating a “kickstarter links” feature would make things worse.. the cost of begging would still be zero, and the chance of getting rewards would actually increase.

Fortunately game theory also suggests a solution: take a committed position, and balance the rules by adding a cost for spamming.

The committed position I’d suggest falls more or less in line with the rest of the comments here: “Hackaday will not, under any circumstances, mention the kickstarter status of any project.” If a cool project happens to be up for funding, that’s fine, but that’s information for the project page.

I’d suggest adding another couple committed position as well:

– “Hackaday will not link to any page that contains the word ‘kickstarter’. Your pitch for funding has to live on a separate page.”

– “If the description you give us contains the words ‘kickstarter’ or ‘funding’, your submission automatically goes in the trash.”

– “Being on kickstarter is one strike against getting mentioned on Hackaday. Being up for funding doesn’t make your project interesting, your project has to be interesting enough to overcome the schnorring factor.”

As far as costs go, I’d suggest a blacklist with exponential backoff:

– If your project asks for funds and we choose not to post it, it goes on the list.

– The initial blacklisting period is one week.

– If the project is resubmitted (from any source) while it’s on the list, that submission goes straight into the bit-bucket.

– Every bit-bucketing doubles the amount of time your project will spend on the list.

– Ignoring any of the committed positions above buys you a multiplier of 8, not 2.

– Submitters who ignore the committed positions get their names on the list under the same basic rules. All submissions from that source get bit-bucketed while the source is on the list.

I think those rules would prevent both spam and malicious abuse. They’re simple enough you could probably implement them in code, and they’d give people a reason to think twice before spamming you with “hey, send people to my beg-for-money page!” requests.

Though your theory looks nice, there’s a point on which I totally disagree with you: IMHO to be on HaD the project has to be cool/interesting, have some sort of hack value, and be open.

I really think that cool projects that just shows off some kind of technicity without asking to be funded but without giving any material on how to reproduce the project should get less space on HaD than cool projects that are fully open but also asks for money.

And of course, IMHO, 90% of the KS projects does not even exists, the iphone controlled lightbulb, or stupid arduino/rasppi casings etc.. should just go to /dev/null.

But I’m sad that projects like the cool 5-axis CNC willing to be funded to be opensourced did not get funded, but I’m really happy to have found out about it reading HaD. And whatever happens, I think HaD has to continue supporting that kind of projects. Because those are great hacks.

So, I still agree that HaD should not link to KS directly, but having a KS link on the main site is not a no-go, as far as I’m concerned. For me it’s the same as a “support me” flattr/paypal link.

As for me, if it’s on kickstarter, it should not be on hackaday, unless it’s some interesting development of something mentioned earlier. I like this place grassrootish and commercial projects should get their buzz elsewhere, they have gizmodos and engadgets for that.

I agree, don’t overload us with kickstarter projects – just the ones that are cool/innovative/unique.

The problem though is that it sounds like hackaday is being overwhelmed with projects from kickstarter (and others), making it challenging to filter the good from the bad and the ugly.

Perhaps – the best solution is to open a separate part of the site where projects can self list. Users that are interested in these types of projects can peruse them, but the front page stays relatively clean.

I really enjoy the Kickstarers that HAD and other tech sites show me. Basically I appreciate you guys separating the wheat from the chaff instead of having to do it myself.

Please don’t stop posting about cool Kickstarters, but definitely consider new submission guidelines that help make it easier to manage. Such as a separate submission process, or requirements to describe why the Kickstarter is worthy of HAD in 10 words or less.

I read this every time. It has a basic, often humorous summary of each. It makes my mind wander. Plus it is great fun to see those dumb projects with $50 out of $300,000 in funding for ‘Types of Homogenous Dirt: The Board Game’

look and see whether there is any real merit for it being a hack/very innovative in the project project perhaps?

Or just put all the ones on here that ask to be posted and let the HAD mob rip em to shreds/praise their usefulness, it’d make a change from the pi-duino flame wars.

My vote goes for the 2nd one, all the project posters hope that being on HAD will help them to secure funding, it’s a double edged sword and once a few projects have been mauled/praised it may make people think twice about asking for their crowd funding projects to appear on HAD.

I was going to go with keeping standards but I like your idea a lot better. Having the HAD crowd rip to pieces all unworthy entries will be fun to watch. It will definitely discourage others seeking only money. The good ones will stand on their own.

I’d like to see at least the projects H.A.D. thinks are neat published.

My main reason for this is that browsing kickstarter is horrible. I haven’t seen a way to view a list of all projects. So when i go on there i’m always not seeing some projects that either aren’t funded enough or aren’t popular enough to show up on their top whatever lists.

H.A.D. publishing some crowd funded items would still be a curation of content but at least it would lean much more towards my interests.

– The project was first open source and not funded and now they want to expend it using crowd funding. Means development is already done, funding is for production. [like that wing for the papillo made for chiptunes]

I agree with several here – why not only write about the funded/failed-funding ideas. This way its not advertising for the actual funding short of an advert for the to-be-made device itself.

Obviously the failed-funding ones would be a “what could have been” scenario, but alot of hackaday projects are one offs, where people would then contact etc. If something then became of the project after failing on kickstarter what is the problem, i’m sure there have been similar situations on hackaday already…

At root Hackaday is a filter. Caleb and company do I fine job of filtering a presumable tsunami of submissions down to a reasonable set of what they consider worthwhile. Experience shows that my idea of worthwhile matches their’s pretty well. I vote against a hard and fast rule ref Kickstarter et al.
If the submission is cool/interesting/clever then include it. I leave it to the Hackaday crew to continue to decide what is cool/interesting/clever.
Keep ’em coming.

I *need* a KS filter, and HAD is the best I’ve found. I’ve backed 6 projects so far, 4 or which were funded, and three of those 4 I learned about through HAD. The 4th one was an album by a friend of mine.

I get to do relatively little hackling of my own these days, and I’m about a bazillion projects behind. I *really* like the idea of being able to help someone else produce a cool thing, then get one of my own to play with.

My favorite so far is the DigiSpark: I’m going to use them with my nephew to help him learn about computing in the physical world. I never would have noticed this project without HAD, and I never would have had the insight to create something so small and functional on my own. (My designs always use over-sized processors, just in case).

So, I’d say HAD should be a KS filter, where the projects HAD mentions get more than just positive feedback: Help evolve the standard of what the best tech projects KS can aspire to, and point out where covered projects fall short.

And all HAD folks who back a KS project should be SURE to mention HAD in a project comment!

I would leave kickstarter projects out.
Kickstarter is more for soon to be done projects while HAD covers more like finished or soon to be finished stuff.
But what if they design a seperate site just for the idea itself where you can’t find a connection or reference to kickstarter at all? I think you could publish that.
The only drawback is that you’d have to check the site on a regular basis or else they would just add the kickstarter reference after being published on your site.
Otherwise I’d rather stay away from this… or you could ask for a small fee ;)

Actually, I changed my mind on that. There is a place on HaD for kickstarter projects, and any other thing except for a product review where you or someone else was sent a product to review that is of interest to hackers. The advertising panels that pays to show advertisements, thus supporting HaD. If you want to start your own company, you need some skin in the game. Taking advantage of a tech blog for amateur hobbyists is immoral…

I clearly understand your rant. Feeling used is never awesome.
Yet as one of your reader, I still want to see cool hacks. That’s the reason I’m reading here : cool hacks. I dont care if that’s on kickstarter and a like or not. Cool hacks should still be your selection criteria.
I’m a reader because I trust you pickin the nicest, the coolest hack. Continue your good works :)

1) Must be something cool enough to post is it weren’t a kickstarter. Meaning, the project is genuinely innovative/unique and on topic.
2) Submitter must not be involved in the project.(may be too hard to enforce)
3) Must be fully developed and either ready to make or waiting on funding for tooling.
4) Have a minimum threshold for posting. X unique users must submit the same project before it is considered. The actual number will depend on how many submissions you typically get. This also assumes you have a mechanism to reduce sockpuppets.

I’m with leesamn, I like seeing the good projects but I don’t want to really mine the internet for them, that’s part of why I come here, you aggregate a lot of cool stuff. The source of the stories (KS, BLOG, Etc) doesn’t really matter to me as long as it’s interesting, intriguing, fun and /or there’s a chance to learn something from it.

Just use your best judgement? It seems to be working so far with lots of diversity and at least where articles you post are concerned, a friendly non-elitist environment(leave that for the commenters!)

If I am not able to replicate a hack due to lack of info (rather than my own ineptitude), then that isn’t a useful hack. So open disclosure is a must. If the KS ads have that, then great.
Otherwise it is a no.
But reading some posts above, I would like to suggest that HaD readers should not rely on HaD as some sort of filter: one, it is assuming too much of the HaD staff, and two, it is asking too much of the HaD staff! Do your own donkey work.

If it’s really that cool and the person sending the link to you wants to share it I can only assume they’ve been working on it for a while and really proud about it. If that’s the case they would have a blog or website about the development also. Linking that that and then a link for that site to kickstarter would be a better idea.. also covering things that are well on their way instead of asking for money to develop an idea.

I think Kickstarter is amoral in the way they behave (we’re not a store my ass) and in the way they’re setup (downside risk all on one end, upside rewards all on the other). They’re really unbeatable from a free publicity point of view unfortunately though.

That said, just treat Kickstarter projects as any other commercial product, on a case by case basis if it’s cool enough.

Do a hackaday KS special: one giant post every now and again with noteworth hack-related Kickstarter projects. This suits people with interest in KS projects that are within Hackaday’s general remit – the Arduino shields, the hackable robots, the nixie tube stuff, etc. get their fix; while everyone else not interested in KS can just skip over the single post and not have to be bombarded by continual hackvertisments.

I admit guilt for trying to get Hackaday to feature our kickstarter, though I genuinely feel it’s something this crowd would be interested in because it’s designed from the ground up to be hackable or used in hacks. Nevertheless, I figured from the total non-reply from Hackaday that the message was: Hackaday isn’t interested. I didn’t realise Hackaday was inundated with similar requests, if I had known I would not have tried to bother hackaday about it. I don’t hold a grudge, and only now do I understand the issue. And I’d apologise for trying to get featured in the first place, won’t happen again.

I like this idea, but there are projects that would not get the correct coverage.

For example if someone did a really awesome hacker project and used Kickstarter sell a technical part.

The people interested in Kickstarter projects would click on it and not be interested in the technical part. The hackers would never have clicked on it in the first place since 99% of the time these Kickstarter projects are boring.

How can you claim to be open or “open source” and be ‘closed sourced’ to Kickstarter? You’re open to business with everyone else. Why not them or why don’t you compete?

This kickstarter craze is like Arduino in that you can’t stop it.

You can make money and traffic from Kickstarter but if you ignore it, you make nothing.

You could compete with kickstarter by having your own kickstarter and kickstarter wouldn’t be able to compete with hackaday because they don’t have what you have. You could definately steal the tech business from kickstarter.

It sounds like growing pains for Hackaday and if Hackaday doesn’t adapt, change and overcome the enemy, you will not grow and you will stay this little itty bitty blog and others will compete and swallow you whole.

“It sounds like growing pains for Hackaday and if Hackaday doesn’t adapt, change and overcome the enemy, you will not grow and you will stay this little itty bitty blog and others will compete and swallow you whole.

Frankly, HaD is #1 blog about hacks for me and I really shopped around, its outstanding quality and spirit only became apparent to me after I compared all the hacks blogs I frequent. I like selection, freshness, volume and format. I can’t imagine anyone coming over and competing it out, without outright copying it.

I say don’t post crowd funded projects at all. Post their project site/blog that holds the nitty-gritty about the hack etc. but not to whichever site they’re trying to make money from. In my mind to hack something is to either make something yourself or modify a pre-existing product to make it do something you want or more than it was intended – because you can’t buy it or the cost is too high etc.

-Things I see and think “arg, another project on my todo list”, or at least “something I need to try to see if I ever go to this town”
-Projects which share technical details, encountered difficulties, solutions, maybe even plans… I don’t care if it’s commercial project, unniversitary research, or made in a garage, as long at it show me some way of solving problems that I can learn from
-Beautifull technical solutions

I say F’k spam. Period. When something starts to go out of control like Kickstarter, then it’s time to clamp down on the abuse. Kickstarter is cool. But not cool enough to justifying being it’s spam mule.

Ask for a link to their website itself. If it has a link to kickstarter good for them, but then you aren’t directly linking to kickstarter, if someone’s interested they’ll go to it themselves and find it.

Don’t make this more complicated than it is. This is a matter of not being a sellout portal for peddling someones junk. Just keep doing what you are doing and if something “cool” comes out of kickstarter, put it up! if it comes from the devil himself put it up! As long as you aren’t doing it to push something for punk like reasons, than I’ll keep haven the respect for you! The important fans can smell the fakes! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

If it someone posts a plea then give it coverage. This is a great site and lots of people come here. I read here alot about great projects and if someone needs funding and tghis site edorses funding pleas then by all means post it.

Don’t link to crowdfunding sites. Don’t mention that a project is being crowdfunded in your post. Evaluate all submissions based on the information that is /not/ on any crowdfunding site.

In other words: Submissions should be to project websites. Project websites should have all the pertinent information about the submission. If the project website has a link to a Kickstarter project that shouldn’t affect whether the submission is worth posting, but don’t consider the Kickstarter project as part of the submission.

If I make a cool product and I have a few in the pipeline, then I would not ask for hackaday to cover it’s kickstarter page. If a product is good enough to be on hackaday let it be on here because of that.

I think you should do the same as you do with any submission. If it’s interesting, and you think the readers would enjoy reading about it, then post it. If not, then don’t. Maybe you should be slightly tougher on Kickstarter-ish stuff, but I don’t think you should have a blanket ban.

Just my two cents: Unless the project is something really phenomenal, the first thing I look for is whether it’s open. If it’s open sourced/open hardware and something I’m interested in, I am much more likely to fund it.

Not that this should be HaD’s policy, but it seems like HaD favors links where people go into detail about their projects. HaD might want consider only giving lip service to projects that are actually willing to show their innovation in detail. If a project on one of the crowdfunding sights is open, this means there is a willingness to describe what they’ve done.

On the other hand, even if they have a cool project, if they’re closed it means they’re more business centric and not willing to share the specifics of their product.

If HaD required a working prototype and in depth project details from all Kickstarter submissions, you know the quality of Kickstarter projects would improve.

Not that improving Kickstarter is the goal. I think the goal is to only post interesting content. In that scope I think the above recommendation satisfies both.

No prototype, no details? Not interesting.

Too many technical details can be a problem with some Kickstarters. HaD is not only a nice centralized location to look at projects, but it also summarizes projects so we don’t have to pour through pages of technobable to realize it’s just another Arduino controlled LED cube.

If they really want free advertisement, make your jobs easier and require that they produce a quick X word summary including X pictures etc. Tell them we only post projects we feel our readers will find interesting.

In this way everyone is happy. …well everyone except people with uninteresting or unrealistic projects.

I would go with license. With closed source software or hardware someone is trying to make business. With open source software and hardware, someone is trying to build stuff for everyone. Of course, there are exception, maybe some closed source tool we all like to hear about. But I thing open hardware should have priority over closed one.

I think a good guideline for HAD in regards to kickstarter, would be
a. sufficient details that a skilled, motivated person could re-create
b. interesting from a technical standing
c. Has a project page in addition to kickstarter
d. Probably would be good it the people involved have a web presence (with completed projects) > 1-2 years

Basically, a kickstarter project would have to be much better than an average HAD article.

I kinda like HADs coverage of kickstarter. Mainly because I never think to look on the site itself. Having said that I completely get why you’re sick of being inundated with pap.

So for my 2p I’ll say start a new website called hackstarter that crowd funds only open source hacking and then post a link to that somewhere near the top of hackaday and only feature stuff from there.